Need your opinions: Phenom 9600 or E7300

[llamajizz]

Alright, my friend is into audio engineering/editing/production and he needs me to build him a new pc since the one he has now is an older single core AMD. I'm fairly sure what the answer to this is but I thought I'd get a few outside opinions before placing the order.

I'm wondering if it would be more beneficial to get an e7300 c2duo or a phenom 9600 quad core. The main DAW he's going to be using is Cubase and SUPPOSEDLY, it supports 4 cores. BUT even if it does support the phenom's 4 cores, intel's processors seem to just run better with any sort of cpu intensive audio editing. Unfortunately, the last amd I used was back in the 939 days so I wouldn't know how well the newer ones run. Lots of vsts in cubase = tons of load on the cpu. What would you think?

 

[Philippart]

If the software really supports 4 cores, I'd surely go with the Phenom. The load will spread evenly over all cores and the 9600 is pretty fast.
Even if many intel cpus are currently faster than the phenom, it doesn't make the phenom a very bad cpu. It has (compared to the E7300) the advantage of 4 cores and it is in many real world apps competitive with mainstream intel cpus (of course not high end, but that's not what you're looking for either).

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Go with the Phenom

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Why a Phenom 9600? That's the old B2 stepping with the TLB bug. If you don't disable the TLB "fix" that is usually set to "on" by default in most mobo's BIOSes, then the Phenom 9600 is slower than the e7300 even in tasks that support 4 cores.

Why not a Q6600?

If your friend prefers AMD, Newegg has the Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition for $155 w/free shipping.

Of course, Phenom 2's release is imminent, and there's much positive speculation regarding performance, but maybe prices are higher than your friend wants to spend.

Also about to launch is the new AMD Athlon X2 7xx0 line of CPU's, which look to be comparable clock-for-clock with Intel's Wolfdale, and priced lower, too.

 

[heyheybooboo]

There is a combo deal ($275 AR) for the Phenom 9850 BE and Vista Ultimate 64-bit

The Gigabyte DS3 AMD 770 chipset for $80 has everything but eSATA

 

[SlowSpyder]

A Phenom would probably be better in this situation, but why a 9600?